What Lies Beneath
by Soul Reaver
Summary: Imhotep's cult, surviving into the 21st Century, is still holding on. What lies beneath the sands of Egypt, supposedly free of Imhotep's evil....
1. Reawakened

What Lies Beneath 

What Lies Beneath 

By Soul Reaver 

Disclaimer: Both the Roughnecks and the Mummy characters belong to their respective creators. I make no money out of this and my only reward is my own enjoyment. 

Summary: Set in the late 21st Century, a decade after the Bug War, and parts may spill into the 20th Imhotep's evil still lives, festering beneath the sands, as does his cult. A line of asterisks shows a change of point of view and a line of minus sands shows a change in time, either backward or forward.. 

Chapter One 

The little wooden marionette danced across the floor in an inanimate pirouette. Its strings lead up to the deft hands of the man who controlled it. He was a medium built man, with wire-framed eyeglasses and a low faded haircut. A small, thin beard was growing on his face he hadn't shaved in days. It was a face as scraggly as his garb, simply an undershirt and a pair of drab olive fatigue trousers. A German shepherd lying on the floor perked up as he dropped the puppet on the floor in a heap as opposed to hanging it from the hook on his apartment wall. 

He stared out the window into the Cairo streets below his apartment building. There was a building across the street, the Cairo Hospital. He looked at it for a moment as if trying to recapture a lost moment, trying to go back to a time when there wasn't reconstruction going on in the building façade. It was long moments before he migrated to his desk, switched on his computer and began to type. 

As he typed, these words appeared on the screen: 

The woman I love is… 

It was long moments before he could bring himself to type the word that spoke the truth, but was somehow too painful to simply type at this moment. He decided to continue on with his tale. 

Appeared on the screen of the computer. The man continued typing; It is a tale of strife, of intrigue, but a tale of love nonetheless. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

That same man, a few days ago, twenty one year old Warrant Officer Larry Purvis, K-9 Corps, kenneled Ranger, his German shepherd, his K-9 partner whom he had been assigned. He had taken this Cairo station after two of the three years he had been in the K-9 Corps being spent at the training school and later at the Amazonia K-9 Corps base along the Amazon River in Brazil. 

K-9 Corps handlers were all warrant officers or above, typically applicants would go through the warrant officer school which was a year long course half spent in military basic training and the other half in military etiquette before going to K-9 Corps assignment with training for another year. Two MI troopers passed by, both saluting. Purvis returned the salute before turning around and taking Ranger out of the kennel. 

"What the hell, boy." Purvis said, "We both need a walk." 

He leashed Ranger and walked him out the base gate. He walked about until he came to the Cairo Hospital. He saw her walking from her car as he and Ranger walked by. "Got a minute?" he said. 

"You aren't sick, Purvis." she replied. 

"Come to think of it," Purvis said, gamely, "there is that nasty ache in my abdomen…" 

"Very funny." she replied. She was petite in stature, dark haired with matching eyes, and slim figured. Irene Amoros was the apple of Purvis' eye since he had arrived here, but for some reason he could never quite get the nerve to tell her how he really felt. 

Ranger barked impatiently, wanting to continue his walk. "Ranger, calm down boy." Purvis said. 

"Your dog seems quite edgy." Irene said. 

"He just wants exercise." Purvis said, gently but firmly bracing his forearm on Ranger's leash. The German shepherd got the message and sat. 

"Well, I've got work to do." Irene, ever the busy young medical intern, replied. 

Purvis continued his walk. Ranger got back up and followed, lead by Purvis' leash. As far as K-9 Corps went, most handlers tended to become very emotionally attached to their dogs and Purvis and Ranger were no exception. Ranger refused to go anywhere unless Purvis told him otherwise. Presently, Purvis strolled back onto base, back to his small apartment in the Bachelor Officer's Quarters, and off to bed. 

It was Ranger who first realized something was amiss when he nuzzled his handler out of his bed. "What is it boy?" Purvis said, putting on his glasses. 

It was just then that the alarm went off and in the middle of the night, all personnel were assigned to join their units for specific briefings. 

Lieutenant Kirsch was standing in one of the briefing rooms, awaiting the last of his handlers for his twenty-man K-9 reconnaissance unit. He activated a holographic viewer and Purvis saw what looked like an underground sonar map of ruins underground, partially dug up. "A seismic research facility reported finding this city four months ago. Ever since then, unusual seismic activity has been peaking up in that general vicinity. As of 0100 this morning nothing has been heard of from the research facility. Now the Sky Marshall doesn't want to be too overt about this, so we have the MI garrison on standby alert with three squads accompanying us. Intel's sending more psys into this region and in the meantime, they want us gathering intelligence on that site round the clock. Our K-9 units are to range ahead of the main force, gathering any and all intelligence we can, constantly relaying information to the command post. Understood." 

"Mr. Purvis," said Chief Warrant Officer Colley, "Prep the K-9's for the op." 

All K-9s had their quirks and the K-9s Purvis was assigned to prep were no exception. Diablo was the dog he least liked to prep. Diablo, the LT's dog, a Doberman pinscher, had the tendency to bite or otherwise injure other handlers aside from his master. Right now, Diablo was growling ominously at him as he carried his radio collar and camera equipment harness. All neodogs carried a radio, a self destruct bomb which the operator or the dog can blow itself up in case of bad wounds or capture, and a variable vision mode camera which enabled his human partner to see what it saw. There are stories about K-9 handlers whom, when they lose their charges, go insane and need extensive mental rehabilitation. As for K-9's whose masters are killed the K-9 is killed at once to spare it the grief of losing its caretaker who cared for it from puppy hood onward. All K-9 Corps recruits are assigned to an adolescent dog and one of the K-9 Corps School's objectives is to foster a sort of partnership between both dog and man. 

Purvis knew all this as he geared up all nineteen dogs, and the handlers geared up as well for the fight. Purvis threw on the supply vest over his khaki fatigue uniform, which contained a pistol, ammo magazines, his radio, flashlight, canteen, and infrared scope. He took the Glock 21 and his spare magazines. Purvis preferred to carry the heavier .45 caliber weapon as opposed to the standard nine-millimeter firearm because of it's greater stopping power than the nine-millimeter. 

He scratched Ranger behind his ears as the 3rd Tactical Reconnaissance, K-9, squad boarded its skimmer, flying out towards the seismic research facility. Once there, the K-9 Corps would be inserted five miles away from the objective and provide recon data on the periphery of the MI and Intel spec ops units inserted ten miles from the site. 

K-9 senses are inherently sharper than those of humans, so Purvis released Ranger's leash and let him sneak through the ruins at his discretion. K-9 handlers typically were reliant on stealth to accomplish their missions and their K-9s were equally as well trained. 

Keeping low and to cover, Ranger used every sense he had, making little, if any, noise as Purvis activated Ranger's camera to see what he could see. Activating his own infrared scope, he panned about the ruins from the rocky outcropping where he was hiding. He took the little flat screen reader, the one connected to Ranger's translator unit, that would translate his barks into human terms and took a look at the screen, Ranger hadn't barked yet so nothing was going on. 

This was the riskiest part of a K-9 team and both K-9 and handler know not to make any noise unless absolutely necessary. Ranger came back from his patrol, he hadn't detected anything unusual, he reported by a series of body positioning that both he and Purvis were trained to recognize. Something was wrong, however, as the fur on the back of Ranger's neck stood on end. "What is it boy?" Purvis whispered. 

Ranger responded by pointing towards the direction he wanted Purvis to go. Crawling silently, with Ranger in the lead, Purvis drew his pistol, chambered a round and peered over a dune. There was a dune in front of him that appeared suddenly, in the shape of a face, a human face. Almost as soon as it appeared it disappeared. This is unusual. Purvis thought. 

Ranger led him around the face like appearance, toward the entrance of a large structure. The tracks of vehicles were visible, as were several vehicles themselves, red turbaned warriors stood guard around them with several more coming in and out of the structure. From out of a truck, came three people, one of them one of Purvis' fellow K-9 handlers, a chubby fellow Hutchinson. Hutchinson's face had a hollow eyed look of a handler that had just lost his K-9. All three appeared to be prisoners and Purvis saw the most unlikely sight he had ever laid his eyes upon. A man, whom, judging by the stature his skeletal figure and rotted flesh presented, might have been quite muscular in life, stood before the three captives and strangely enough, in a swirl of sand, he watched as Hutchinson was reduced from the fleshy frame to barely a skeleton. Each time the walking corpse repeated this deed he would appear more human and when he finished off the third captive, he was now a copper skinned, muscular, and bald headed man. 

Purvis was horrified and he tightened his grip on his pistol. The strange man said a few words in a language he didn't know, but judging from his tone, he didn't like it. Coming up behind him were half a dozen mummy soldiers wielding wicked looking swords and tridents. Creeping away before they saw him, Purvis managed to get out of the canyon when his boot slipped and a rock skittered down the cliff. The six mummy soldiers went after him. Firing his pistol, the first mummy took two .45 caliber rounds to the chest and a third to the head before going down. Assuming a practiced firing stance, Purvis squeezed another tight pattern around the fourth and fifth mummies about their torsos. Half reduced the attacking force continued pursuit as Purvis raced across the desert, firing his weapon, and dropping the empty clip, one mummy still in pursuit. 

He came upon the command post, expecting to find answers and at least a few MI troopers to help him drive off those mummified bastards but the command post was deserted, dead men lying killed at their posts, and drag marks where human beings had been dragged across the sands. He tried to raise the base on the radio, nothing but static. 

He had to get to Cairo in time to warn the base of what to expect. Finding a jeep, he drove across the dunes like a madman, not knowing what awaited him and Ranger in the city. He didn't know, could not know, that the city had already been completely taken over… 

Document created with wvWare/wvWare version 0.6.7 -->


	2. Finding Survivors

What Lies Beneath, Chapter II  
  
As Purvis stopped the jeep on a Cairo street that normally should be busy, he knew instantly that something was amiss. For one, there were no people about, Cairo was a busy city and people were about almost all the time. It wasn't even that late. Another thing was amiss in that a stench of death was on the wind.  
  
The jeep's engine sputtered and died. The battery was dead, something he confirmed when he saw the battery had been bitten into. He saw acid burned little corpses lying under the axles. Apparently these pigmies had latched onto his jeep axles at some point and were chewing on the battery. The wiring looked like it was still alright, so Purvis drew his pistol and moved cautiously forward, giving Ranger two curt hand signals meaning to reconnoiter the area around the jeep near them. It was a wise choice for a living pygmy jumped out from under the jeep and Ranger's jaws clamped around the pygmy as he shook it to death.  
  
"Come on boy, let's get out of here." Purvis said. Ranger whined as he threw the pygmy corpse aside as if it were composed of molten lead. He had two priorities, warn the base and locate some heavier firepower.  
  
He found two MI corpses lying in front of a popular off base bar. Somehow their rifles had been destroyed which was a waste. He went in and saw several empty bottles. He hit on an idea just then, to create a few Molotov cocktails. He went around and under the bar made an unexpected discovery, an FN-FAL assault rifle. He chuckled despite himself; Hamid was always the paranoid one, ready for a big disaster to hit at any moment. That's how he had survived the Bug War. The FN-FAL did him no good this time, however, Hamid was nowhere to be seen.  
  
There were two extra magazines strapped under the bar as well and Purvis snapped these up. He saw there was another clip in the FN-FAL, chambered a round and walked outside with his new rifle at the ready. He was fully aware he had sixty 7.62 mm rounds spread through three 20 round clips. He needed more ammunition. He had already gone through two of his pistol clips as well. He saw another of the soldier mummies come out from around the corner and put two rounds through it's chest dead center, it staggered forward a few steps and he fired another round through it's face, killing it. Another was sneaking around behind him and if Ranger hadn't alerted him, he would have been killed. Purvis turned, fired a three round burst into it's torso, and knocked it over with his rifle. He decided wisely it was in his best interests to run. And run he did.  
  
Another mummy got in his way and Purvis put a pair of 7.62 rounds into its chest. There was something odd about this one, blood gushed from it. All the mummies he had so far shot had merely exploded desiccated fragments of rotted flesh and bone, but no blood. Ranger barked, a short sharp bark and Purvis saw that Ranger's radio transmitter, operational the entire time, had sent their entire encounter to the Command Post and the base as well. But nothing had come of it, strangely. Under normal circumstances, there would be MI everywhere. He tried to raise the base, getting nothing but static. He had a bad feeling about this. Ranger had picked up a scent trail and alerted him to it. Following Ranger's lead he went inside a building three blocks from the base and ran into a medium built Egyptian man, an MP named Sgt. Al-Samir.  
  
"Sir." Samir said, "What's going on here?"  
  
"I was hoping you'd know sergeant." Purvis said.  
  
"No, I don't know anything." Samir said. "All I know was that I was standing my watch then I heard gunshots, screams, and finally silence. The entire city, as well as the base has been taken over by those.things."  
  
Clad in his simple fatigue uniform and carrying only his side arm, Samir was lucky to have survived. "What do you have left?" Purvis asked.  
  
"Just two nine millimeter clips, sir." Samir said, "What about you?"  
  
"Not much more, half a rifle clip with two spares, and two pistol clips." Purvis said.  
  
The two men walked towards the base until coming upon a dead MP lying face down on the sidewalk. Samir salvaged two more pistol clips, which he attached to his belt. The damaged shotgun the MP carried would have been a nice addition but it was bent at a nearly ninety-degree angle.  
  
A mummy popped up from behind a wall and Samir popped two nine-millimeter rounds into it. It began to attempt to get back up again and Samir fired two more times, putting it down for good. "Samir, watch out!" Purvis said, turning around, his .45 speaking a couple times, the mummy with a scythe falling onto its back with two large holes blown through its chest.  
  
"Why is this mummy bleeding?" said Samir, "Don't mummies typically have no blood?"  
  
"I know, I've seen that too." Purvis said.  
  
"We need to find answers somehow." Samir replied.  
  
"And survivors, if any." Purvis said grimly. They walked into the base security building looking up the security cameras. It showed MI troopers in a fierce battle against several mummies staggering towards them. It showed civilians being herded to the relative safety of the underground shelters along with nonessential personnel.  
  
"We should check the shelters, there may be survivors down there, sir." Samir replied.  
  
"First lets make a side trip into the armory." Purvis said.  
  
The armaments room in the security building had been unlocked and many of the weapons there had already been handed out. Samir unlocked a small steel wall cabinet. The riot gear was typically stored inside this locker, however none of it was left. He managed to find a Franchi SPAS 12 shotgun with a folding stock in the safe along with a box of shotgun shells. Taking the shotgun, he loaded eight shells into the magazine, and placing the remainder into the pockets of his MP fatigue uniform.  
  
He found a box of .45 rounds for the CQB pistols used by the riot control unit in the security detail and handed them to Purvis who reloaded his empty clips and placed the rest of the fifty round box into his field pack.  
  
They went into the underground shelter, and Purvis opened the steel door finding several tunnels dug into the floor, along with what appeared to be trails of people being dragged underground. He opened the door to the other room and slammed it shut just as hastily. Several scarab beetles came scrambling through the crack in the door he had opened. Samir fired two rounds from the shotgun he carried, blowing them away and punching holes into the floor in the process.  
  
Purvis yanked the door open, lighting one of the two Molotov cocktails he had carried in a field pack he had taken from the jeep. He lobbed it inside the room and slammed the heavy door shut. The cocktail exploded, incinerating the living mass of scarabs covering the floor and anything else flammable that happened to be in its blast radius. When Purvis, .45 in hand, yanked the door open again, a thick cloud of smoke poured out of the room a mummy popped out of a tunnel. Keyed full of adrenaline, Purvis squeezed of a tight pattern of three rounds in the center of the mummy's face. It dropped back down to the ground.  
  
It was then that both Samir and Purvis heard screaming coming from the next room, and the last room of the underground shelter. Using a pair of twelve gauge rounds on the lock Samir kicked the door down to find a mummy on top of Amoros. Firing a third shot, the mummy was blasted in half by a burst of double aught buckshot from Samir's shotgun. Purvis helped Irene to her feet and asked, "What's going on here?"  
  
"I was hoping you'd know." Amoros replied.  
  
"I'm sorry, I don't." Purvis replied.  
  
"There are a couple others here," Amoros said, opening a large closet. A woman in her mid thirties with curly brown hair, a thirtyish professorial man along with a youngish collegiate man in his mid twenties stepped out. The woman Purvis knew, sort of, she was Lowanda Dumore, the bank president, who despite her attractiveness and soft seductive Southern accent had somewhat of a ruthless reputation. Apparently she also had a powerful survival instinct.  
  
The two men introduced themselves. "Doctor Elliot Cray, Egyptology."  
  
"Richard Leivy." Leivy, the college kid, was one of Cray's graduate students, the survivor of a four man Egyptology expedition to Hamunaptra, the other two being the victims Purvis had seen become little more than desiccated remains on the desert floor.  
  
"Well," Purvis said, "If we're going to find any answers, I'm guessing we'll have to look at Hamunaptra."  
  
"That's insane!" said Leivy, "We should get out."  
  
"We should get to the bottom of this." Purvis said.  
  
"Can't you just leave us here and pick us up when this all is done." Dumore said.  
  
"We can't leave you guys here, it's too dangerous." Purvis said.  
  
"First we have to gather some supplies." Samir said. Half an hour later, after rooting through the armaments locker with disappointing results, a single box of shotgun shells and two boxes of pistol rounds one nine millimeter the other .45 caliber along with one CQB pistol, the makeshift group was ready to go.  
  
"Here, take this." Purvis said, handing Cray the CQB pistol.  
  
"No, I don't like guns." Cray said.  
  
"Take it." Purvis said. Lugging a heavy battery, Leivy and the others walked to where Purvis left the jeep and they all piled in as Purvis gunned the engine, driving them towards Hamunaptra and the great unknown.  
  
To be continued. 


End file.
